Dropping Thimbles
by Memphis Lupine
Summary: [A collection of vignettes.] blue fish: Pills for dreams.
1. Glass

_[Note added __03/22/04__] Each of the 'chapters' is actually a self-contained story (or vignette); they are neither related nor meant to follow any particular order, and have been collected under the title **Dropping Thimbles** to keep from spamming the just-in section. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused._****

**--**

**Glass:** a vignette 

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      The nightmares did not come in the twisted and hungry form of the Labyrinth, stone and earth whispering at her back as the world steadily, ominously rearranged itself as if to swallow her into the unknown depths of some maw.  No, those nightmares – those familiar memories – came rarely, in the form of a dark supply closet with an old, sticky door (it became an oubliette, infinite and yet so compact her breath caught at her chest in the blackness); or, sometimes, they came in the shape of a disoriented plunge into a pool where the deep end was suddenly far too deep, and she was disoriented in the water, drugged by the shock and light glittering everywhere (as if she fell upwards into the sky).

      The real nightmares, those that murmured in her ear as she slept, they wrapped themselves in an effervescent gauze of glitter and shadows, and a beautiful, delicate crystal that burst in her hand.

      It was suiting, and still jarring, that he always existed in her dark nighttime unease, slender and fine as he smiled sharply and offered his hand in elegant demand; never an offer, oh, never anything but a silent razor command in the ghastly pallor of a crumbling ballroom, its ivory and silver now decadent and broken.  The tremor in her knees as, helpless to do anything as the nightmare pushed her to take his hand, she was pulled in her jeans and vest to the warped marble of the dance floor; the eerie and frightening glitter of a ballroom cracked like the staircase during that last confrontation; the utterly unexplainable stroke of gloved fingers over the trembling pulse in her thin wrists: sensation turned an odd dream to startled fear.

      And when in the nightmares he sang, pressing his palm gently to the stiff small of her back as she hated him (but could not draw away), his song was brittle; it was hollow with loss and some stirring regret that stung her until she wept silently as they danced, with tears to fall onto the white feathers and brocade he wore when she shook her head once.

      Inevitably the fingertips light at her wrist would leave to touch her chin.

      "Such a pity," he said, in his layered voice.  "Why must you waste tears now, when you have victory?"

      She would close her eyes, and feel dread and a strange, fluttering longing when those fingers touched her lips with all the edged pain of his song.  She would close her eyes, yes, and feel that horrible, proud despair he sang of until she could bear opening her eyes again; now it was to see the cruel, wanting face he had shown her in the room once painted by Escher.

      She stood on the precipice of a vast and awful darkness, a crystal held fragile in her cupped hands.  It glittered silver, cold and brilliant, reflecting his face up at her as he stood, now, at her back, one hand loose at her waist and terrible mouth at her ear.

      "Will you see your dreams, my cruel Sarah?" he asked, amused and cruel as well.  "Will you see what I offer before you deny me?"  

      A low softness to his voice that was nonetheless harsh, and she had no words for what she felt – but she knew she could not look at what was offered to her by the crystal and the dark tone in his voice, promising cruel and wondrous things.

      The crystal would burst, staining her fingers with moonlight.

      He would be before her, then, as the crystal died and the wind pushed a thousand lost (corrupt) dreams into her.  His mouth on hers, hungry and fierce and bitter, as the dreams filled her lungs:

      She had wanted to be a princess.

      _I would make you a queen._

      She had longed for unwavering affection.

      _I would love you in my way._

      But in the end, even as she felt a whimper in her throat and his hands in her hair, his longing song still echoing distantly, she rejected him again – and the ballroom was dashed like glass.

      When she woke in the morning, her fingers glittered silver.

--

Disclaimer:  Jareth, Sarah, and the Labyrinth are the property of Henson, Froud, etc. 

Feedback:  Concrit is always welcomed.


	2. Bindings

**Bindings:** a vignette

--

      With the passage of time - that inevitable continuation even he could not claim to be wholly master of - with the changing of times, he had nearly forgotten the intoxication of belief. It was the way of things, as time did go on by, to let one faith recede in favor of another, more appealing one, and if he had been displeased with this shift of faith from gods to men, no matter: trapped as he was by his own divinity and, by that right of divinity, servitude to the profane unfaithful, only his goblin people would know.

      They suffered his wrath with natural fear, and he in turn suffered their idiocies with his own sour temper; they needed him that the Labyrinth would not devour them in its hunger, and he them for some form of companionship, no matter how lack-witted.

      And still they existed, those precious few who still knew the vague legends of the gods (if not the names or the titles). Divinities demoted to kingships by the race of men they were forever bound to, deities of the Underground reduced from masters who served to merely those who served, trapped by ancient and foolish vows.

      All for the want of one who would believe.

      Oh, and he had known she did not believe, not truly; she knew him as an obscure fairytale's harsh and villainous king, which was not too far - but far enough - from truth. He was no fool to think she thought him anything more than two meaningless, laughably condensed words. She had the faith, though, buried somewhere so deep within her forgetful heart that she did not know it to be there; and it shone, still, in her eyes.

      Any faith was faith enough, and he was bound yet by the old debts to the first faithful, bound damnably by a strange and unfathomable darkness new within.

      When she called, with faith but not true belief, he could only come.

--

Disclaimer:  Jareth, Sarah, and the Labyrinth are the property of Henson, Lee, Froud, etc.

Feedback:  I'd be very grateful.

Thanks To:  **nic** and **Hello it's me fantastic**.  I'm glad you both enjoyed it and thanks for your feedback!  ^^


	3. Owl

**Owl:** a vignette

--

      She held her arms before her face like a bent and awkward cross, hiding her eyes as the wind burst with a howl through the glass doors; rain drove into the skirt of the carpet near where the doors had been thrust open, and here where the gauzy white curtains shivered and whipped with the storm.

      A man stood where the owl had cupped its wings and slowed, black and pale and cruel like winter behind the twisting cloth of the curtain.

      "You're him, aren't you?" she said.

      The words came from her throat without thought, before she could realize he could not be there - owls did not become men, and certainly not --

      "You're the Goblin King."

      He smiled, with a sleek callousness, a terrible, indulgent smile that condescended to her, as if he was familiar with her.

      As if he knew her.

      Even as she spoke again, panic and disbelief almost choking her as she pleaded - she looked at his amused and asymmetrical eyes, gleaming beneath surreally curved eyebrows and oddly colored eyelids.

      You're the owl from the park, she thought with a sudden terror -- to know, now, that he had watched her (panic in her breast, thick and horrified).

      And from the air he pulled her dreams, elegant as a god and sharply intent as an owl.

--

Disclaimer:  Jareth, Sarah, and the Labyrinth (and the goblins, and Toby…) belong to Henson, Froud, Lee, etc.

Feedback:  Got concrit?  ;]

Thanks To: **Lisy** and **Lady-Misericordia** both for your very encouraging feedback.  I'm very appreciative!

Note:  This vignette was inspired largely by the fact that Mr. Bowie's makeup as Jareth mimics the eye design of an owl's.  Whether or not that's actually vignette-worthy…


	4. Escher

**Escher:** a vignette/drabble

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      He set his heels in the dirt carefully, squatting with a wrinkled nose and thoughtful child's expression. A moment slipped by, another twisting after it, before - having glanced cautiously about so as to check for any parents or an elder sibling who would protest playing in the dirt - he pressed a fingertip into the loose, ruddy layer of thin soil.

      He sketched lines out with the chubby curve of his finger, gradually intent on giving shape to a half-shadowed remembrance; intent enough, then, that he did not hear his mother until she stood beside him.

      "What are you drawing, Toby?" she asked kindly, though disapprovingly.

      "Nothin'," he said at first, and twisted his finger to draw off at an angle. "Stairs."

      "What odd stairs," she said aloud and tilted her head to one side.

      His finger stilled and he rocked back on his heels. Looking at the crude angles and the stairs rising (or falling) in unnatural ways, he whispered, "I had a bad dream."

--

Disclaimer:  Toby and the stepmother are the property of Henson, Froud, etc.  Escher's staircase belongs to the Escher estate.

Feedback:  Very appreciated!

Thanks To:  **EclipseKlutz**, who reviewed twice (thanks! - -and I apologize if I'm not being clear with my vignettes; I've been meaning to work on that!), and **Lady-Misericordia**.  I'm not too sure I'd be the best person to ask writing lessons from, but thank you for your encouraging feedback!  :D


	5. Valor

**Valor:** a vignette

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      Sometime shortly after his plumed (and carefully tended) brush of a mustache began turning a profound and aging white, the small (but no less noble for it) knight known as Didymus began noticing changes.  Small things, at first: a sudden aching in his joints that passed quickly enough at first; occasional moments when scents did not seem as sharp, nor as interesting; a deep and peculiar anxiety, every once in a great while.

      But he was indeed a knight, the last surviving member of the order that had pledged fealty so long ago to the Goblin King.  If Didymus' joints ached, why then it only meant he was exerting himself quite nobly.  Were scents to every now and then seem dull or even nonexistent, it merely meant he had grown quite used to those smells.  He was not anxious, but alert.

      And always he was loyal to his liege, even when he was ordered from his point as guard outside the city to a tiny outpost in the Bog of Eternal Stench.

      "I can think of no man or beast," the King had said mildly, "better suited for such a job."

      His mustache had bristled with pride.  "Thou honors me, sirrah!" he had declared, pleased by the token of recognition.

      A darkly amused look had twisted the King's lips.  "Quite," he agreed with sly humor.

      That no one came by the outpost, now, was of no importance.  Noble and steadfast a knight as he was, Sir Didymus was confident that his liege indeed had the utmost faith in him; never would a king abandon his last and most devout of the old knights!

      Soon enough his joints moaned at night; and soon he could not smell even the gentlest of vile scents from the Bog; and anxiety ate him up inside until he was always restless.

      But he was a knight, and so did not stray from his lonely duty.

--

Disclaimer: I do not own Sir Didymus, the Goblin King, the Labyrinth, or the BoES – that brilliance belongs to Henson, Froud, Lee, etc.

Feedback: I am always appreciative (and open to constructive criticism!).

Thanks To: **EclipseKlutz**(very glad I was clearer!), **Lady-Misericordia** (the only thing I can really suggest – and I know it's a copout, but I've been doing this for years – is just keep writing even when you feel discouraged; have you tried daily writing exercises?), and **Cherryblossom** (actually, none of the chapters are related: I've edited the first story to include a note about this; thanks for your feedback and encouragement!).  I am very grateful to all of you.  :]


	6. Fairy Story

--

Fairy Story: a vignette 

--

      When she was young all the things of wonder and truth were found in books, a tattered and worn collection with rainbow colors.  _The Red Fairy Book_ was devoured quickly over the summer break, and she clutched _The Green Fairy Book_ when they headed west to North Dakota for her grandmother's funeral.  They were older stories she read when she laughed, and she had them as a comforting fantasy when, every once in a great while, she wanted to hide from the pangs of reality.

      At night she dreamed of rainbow-colored fairies, waiting patiently as one held her mouth to the girl's slumbering ear; she lived every story when she dreamt, guided by a blue fairy's murmured words, or a yellow fairy's breathy laughter.  When night came dark and strong, she slid into the easy enchantment of sleep.

      It was all she had, at times: her mother left; her father was broken.  They packed the china and glazed wood of their old house into stiff cardboard boxes, moved south to Maryland where nothing was familiar but her beloved fairy books.  She read _The Brown Fairy Book_ when her father met a cheery blonde hairstylist named Shelli, and _The Lilac_ when he married her.  She was twelve, then, but had felt older when she watched them together.  Her father, she felt, had betrayed her.

      She retreated to her fantasies; everything she wanted to know was whispered there in her dreams.  Her mother was with her then, too, touching her face and saying, "Oh, baby, just think a prince will love you.  Won't you like that?"

      A prince with gold hair, she thought, and dark eyes to match her green; she was thirteen, then, and moodier than before, now more intent on what she saw reflected in the mirror, and filled with a dislike for the world around her that grew stronger as she grew older.  Dreams sustained her and were easily preferable to reality; she took to spending countless hours flipping through old bargain bins and collector's shelves, looking stubbornly for another story, one she did not already know.  A newer, old, book was bought on a whim at a flea market, red leather tucked behind the record of a fallen alien rock-star: _The Labyrinth_ said the book on its cover, and the pages were only slightly worn with time.

      As she drifted into a fascinated imagining of the Labyrinth, life continued to rearrange around her.  Her stepmother had a son, Toby; her father had a brighter smile.  She retreated to the fantasy of corridors that changed at the whim of either the Labyrinth or the unnamed Goblin King who ruled it.  The heroine gained her sympathy and envy for the journey she took, while a certain tragic loathing was accorded the king himself.

      None of the romance she had come to expect was present, not the sort she dreamed of; but a sort of strange familiarity drew her back to its pages, until sometimes she thought herself to be the heroine.  She would run from her mundane life; the park became her haven, the clinging white dress her armor, the book her guide.

      The owl in the park became her audience.

      The wish itself was an accident – one made from thinking bitterly it was not fair that her life was normal, not fair that she had no prince to save her.  She hated everything in that moment, and wanted fervently for the fantasy to be real.

      Suddenly, it was; suddenly, _he_ was.

      Wrapped in black, seeming larger than he really was as he drew a crystal out of the night: he was far too real, all angles and coy smiles.  Too, he was an imperfect reflection of her fantasy prince, frost blonde with cold blue eyes and uneven pupils.  A perverse reflection at that, so much crueler than any storybook villain she had imagined.

      He dashed her fairytale when he flung the snake-charm at her throat; he took all her wishes, and made lies of them in that single moment of terror.  She knew, then, as she swallowed her fear and turned to face him, that he was not her prince.

      Everything she had loathed in the story had been given flesh; everything, too, she had been fascinated with was now made more powerful with reality.

      "It's further than you think," he said lowly at her ear – turning his head when she started, to smile a mocking curl of his mouth that was entirely too pleased with her reaction.

      She did not understand him and his twisted expressions, of love or hate: his mouth warm near her ear as he sent her on her way with teasing pity; propping his arm casually against subterranean stones to lean towards her – amused with himself, and curious.  He wanted her approval of his challenge, or in the very least acknowledgement of her struggles.

      He was the villain; she gave him nothing.

      And he took her nonexistent fairytale, made a new dream for her in the dizzying drug of the peach.  His gifts were terrible ones: mercy with an edge, some bizarre mix of hate and need.  And he did it all, knowing she could not resist that temptation; all he had to offer, to be at peace with his own selfish want, was the glamour of a fairytale.

      No girl would surrender a king who sang bittersweet promises to her; not this girl, and he gambled everything on that chance.

      So when the story was shattered again it was her doing – not for herself or her idealized prince, but for Toby.  Remembering that Toby was in danger because of her, she turned her back on the fairytale and its king.

      It was worth it.

      Even when the king threatened her with his power, even when he dropped that last pretension of threat to say what they both knew – so desperately broken when his face turned to her as she had first turned, frightened, to him--

      Even then it was worth it, to hold Toby again.  And it was an ending that was mostly happy, though sometimes for no reason she could understand, she wished – briefly – that she had stayed in the false dream.  The moments passed, though, and she was glad for that.

      He gave her his world; she gave him her fairytale.

--

Disclaimer: All characters, etc., belong to Henson, Froud, Lee, etc.  The _Fairy Books_ are the property of Dover, and authored/edited/etc. by Andrew Lang.

Feedback: Any feedback at all would be very welcome.

Thanks To: **Lisy**, **EclipseKlutz**, **Lady-Misericordia** (would it be all right if I sent you an e-mail?), and **DanaeM**.  Thanks for your encouragement, and I'm glad you all enjoyed it!


	7. BlueEyed Boy

**Blue-Eyed Boy:** a vignette

--

      What do you do when the eyes looking back at you from the mirror are not yours?  When you stop and feel like you _must_ lean closer, seeing your familiar blue eyes gleaming, but knowing somehow those eyes aren't your eyes gleaming.  You forget all the stories she told you teasingly when you were just a little kid (not now, you're older and smarter; you don't need any baby stories to sleep anymore).

      Cameras to take your soul, mirrors to take your dreams.

      So you lean to the mirror now, settling your weight on your toes and wrinkling your eyebrows; you place your hands on the counter, by the sink, and look – only look, quizzical and wary – at the blue of your eyes, but not, reflecting out at you.

      "You're not me," you say suddenly, and it's true.

      The reflection – not _your_ reflection, but some other small boy's – smiles pleasantly.  "No," it says in an agreeable manner, "I'm not.  You really have grown into a smart chap, haven't you?"

      You tilt your head to the side, study the reflection, and carefully ease your hands off the counter.  "I want you to go away," you say as firmly as you can.  "Please."

      The reflection laughs, now, and it isn't even your voice anymore, but deeper and older.  "You _are_ your sister's blood, after all," it remarks, amused.  "Do be the smart little child I know you to be, and tell her while I may not have power over her--" something twists in the reflection, no longer looks right "-- I certainly have power over you."

      "Alright," you say slowly.  "I guess I'll tell her."  

      It smiles, dark, at you and some unnoticed fog that had slowly crept into your thoughts vanishes.  And now, with that smile reflected at you, you know you can't.  

      "No!" you backpedal, hitting the wall as you step hurriedly away.  "I didn't mean to say that."

      A sly, frightening sort of reminiscence crosses that face that isn't yours.  "You mustn't regret what has been said," it chides mildly.  "You won't be able to ever take them back."

      "What?" you ask, not understanding.

      "The words," it says with delight, and then the eyes are yours again, the reflection untainted and decidedly _you_.

      But what will you do, if the blue eyes are no longer yours?  If the mirror pulls you deep into a twisted and unnatural underworld?

      You tell her and when she drops the glass she's holding, startling you both and cutting her palm, the reflection's voice laughs in the back of your mind.

--

Disclaimer: Toby, Jareth, and Sarah belong to Henson, Froud, Lee, etc.

Feedback: Tremendously appreciated (especially concrit!).

Thanks To: **bearries**, **Robyn Maddison** (thanks for the peaches!), **EclipseKlutz**, and **Lady-Misericordia** (got your e-mail!).  I appreciate all of your comments, and I'm glad you enjoyed the story.  :]


	8. fever

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, situations, ideas, etc., of Labyrinth, and I am making no financial gain off this fic.  
Notes: This piece is written for the 30 Kisses challenge at livejournal and is in response to theme #19: red.

* * *

**fever**

* * *

Red is the color of roses and the taste of wine, like illness hot beneath the skin, burning in the blood. When she is sticky with fever she imagines her walls painted a red so deep as to be a creature of its own accord and only after does her (step)mother tell her how she sang in a high light voice like a flute or a child to the walls: Hello / How are you / I am dying / How are you?

Perhaps it is the fever bleeding through her skin that brings him to her side when she is mouthing hoarsely in the night for water; perhaps it is the fever driving her brain into manic dream images firing one after the other in a quick succession of terror fear hope love need hate red. Regardless he steps from the red of her walls.

"Sarah. How unwell you look."

Hello, she says, How are you. My throat hurts. The walls are red. My throat hurts.

"I imagine it does." (He turns a crystal around his fingers, winking and bright in the moonlight.) "I wonder what I should do - turn the other cheek, walk the other way. Save my fight for another day. Would you like me to help?"

You aren't real.

"I never was."

Her eyes close and she breathes, tired and heavy with sweat and fever. What do you want?

"Many things," he says, and leaning over her he rubs his thumb down her throat and pops the crystal into her mouth where it shatters and slides like wine into her heart.

She wakes to sunlight spilling across white walls patterned with roses: redpinkyellowdusk and long graceful green stems painted into the white. Sarah rolls her tongue in her mouth at the remembered texture of glass and thinks with slow-moving clarity: I am not dead.

* * *


	9. blue fish

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, situations, ideas, etc., of Labyrinth, and I am making no financial gain off this fic.  
Notes: This piece is written for the 30 Kisses challenge at livejournal and is in response to theme #28: (calcium) pills.

* * *

**blue fish**

* * *

A kiss to the throat, like from a dream: Sarah opens her eyes. Somewhere deep in her chest she can feel her heart pounding in odd arrhythmic pulse. She takes a breath - the faint acrid sweet scent of peach. Another.

One.

Two.

Three.

A branch outside her window scraps soft over glass and then is still.

Sarah slings her legs off the bed and shuffles into the hall, down the dark way to the bathroom. Shakes one pill into her palm, pops it on her tongue, swallows it with water and never looks to the eyes of her reflection. Breathes.

* * *


End file.
